Improving Infant & Young Child Feeding (Haryana)

What is the Improving Infant & Young Child Feeding scheme?

Improving Infant & Young Child Feeding; commonly shortened to IYCF, is a scheme of the Women and Child Development Department, Haryana, sanctioned by the State Government in the year 2005-06. IYCF is a capacity-building and awareness scheme, not a benefit transfer. The department describes two objectives:

1. To give training to grassroots ICDS functionaries on infant and young child feeding practices.
2. To generate awareness on infant and young child feeding practices in the community.

The reasoning behind the scheme is set out plainly on the department's page. Malnutrition, poor maternal and adolescent nutrition and gender discrimination are identified as major problems requiring immediate attention, since every fourth infant born in India has low birth weight and every second child is malnourished. A pattern the department attributes to inadequate caring practices related to health, hygiene, infant and young child feeding, and the care of girls and women.

The department further notes that breastfeeding is a critical entry point for ensuring children's right to grow and develop to their full potential. IYCF therefore treats knowledge, not money, as the binding constraint: a mother who is counselled correctly in the first hour after birth changes an outcome that no cash transfer can buy.

Why was IYCF needed in Haryana?

The department cites NFHS-III data for Haryana:

• 22.3% of infants had breastfeeding initiated within one hour of birth.
• Only 17% of infants aged 0-3 months were exclusively breastfed.

Both numbers are far below the practice that health guidance recommends, and both are behavioural rather than financial problems. They turn on what a family believes and what a frontline worker tells them in the first days after a birth.

The department also cites a study by IBFAN which found that universal exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months is the single most effective child survival intervention, it reduces under-5 mortality by 13%, and that complementary feeding along with breastfeeding up to 2 years prevents a further 6% of deaths. Adding the two, correct infant and young child feeding accounts for close to a fifth of preventable under-5 deaths.

Optimal infant and young child feeding practice, in the department's framing, is crucial for preventing malnutrition and infant mortality and for promoting integrated early child development. That is the sentence the scheme was sanctioned on.

Who is covered by IYCF?

Who is trained under the scheme. The department lists the target group as:

• CDPOs — Child Development Project Officers, who run the ICDS project at block level.
• Supervisors, who oversee clusters of Anganwadi Centres.
• AWWs: Anganwadi Workers, the frontline of the ICDS.
• SMS personnel.
• SHGs, Self Help Groups, which carry messages into the community.
• ASHAs: Accredited Social Health Activists, on the health department side.

The inclusion of both ICDS and health functionaries in the same target group is the important design choice. A mother who is told one thing by her Anganwadi Worker and something different by her ASHA will follow neither; training both together removes that contradiction.

Who benefits indirectly. Infants and young children in Haryana, principally in the 0-2 year window where feeding practice decides growth outcomes, along with pregnant women and lactating mothers who receive the counselling.

Who cannot apply. IYCF has no citizen application, so:

• Parents and families are not eligible to apply for anything under IYCF and cannot receive a payment under it. Counselling reaches them through the Anganwadi Centre without any application.
• Members of the public cannot enrol in the training. Batches are for serving functionaries, nominated departmentally.
• Anyone seeking a nutrition cash benefit is not eligible here and should look instead at Pradhan Mantri Matru Vandana Yojana, Mukhya Mantri Matritav Sahayta Yojana, or the Supplementary Nutrition Programme delivered at Anganwadi Centres.

How to apply for or access IYCF support

Because IYCF has no application form, the honest version of this section is about where the trained worker is rather than what to submit.

1. Locate your nearest Anganwadi Centre. Every habitation in Haryana is mapped to one under the ICDS, and the Anganwadi Worker there is the person trained under IYCF.
2. Register the pregnancy at the Anganwadi Centre or the health sub-centre, and collect the Mother and Child Protection (MCP) card. Registration is what puts a mother on the counselling list.
3. Attend the monthly nutrition and health day and the growth monitoring session at the centre, where the Anganwadi Worker weighs the child, plots growth and gives feeding advice.
4. Ask directly for feeding counselling: on initiating breastfeeding within the first hour, exclusive breastfeeding for six months, when and how to start complementary feeding at six months, and continuing breastfeeding to two years. No fee, appointment or document is needed.
5. Escalate if the centre is not functioning. Raise it with the ICDS Supervisor, then the block CDPO, then the District Programme Officer of the Women and Child Development Department.

For functionaries seeking training: serving CDPOs, Supervisors, Anganwadi Workers, SHG members and ASHAs are nominated for training batches by the block CDPO and the District Programme Officer. There is no self-nomination route, and the department circulates batch schedules internally.

What IYCF counselling actually covers

The practices IYCF is built around are the standard infant and young child feeding recommendations, and they are the content a trained worker is expected to convey:

• Initiation of breastfeeding within one hour of birth, the practice Haryana measured at 22.3% in NFHS-III.
• Exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months, with no water, honey or animal milk.
• Timely introduction of complementary feeding at six months, alongside continued breastfeeding.
• Continued breastfeeding up to two years and beyond.
• Appropriate frequency, quantity, thickness and variety of complementary food as the child grows.
• Feeding during and after illness, when intake typically collapses.

Where does IYCF sit among Haryana's other schemes?

IYCF is one strand of a wider nutrition effort in the state and is best understood next to its neighbours:

• Integrated Child Development Services (ICDS) supplies the Anganwadi infrastructure, supplementary nutrition and growth monitoring for children aged 0-6.
• Poshan Abhiyan is the national nutrition mission covering adolescent girls, pregnant and lactating women and children aged 0-6, and carries the technology and convergence layer.
• IYCF supplies the specific feeding knowledge that makes the other two work at the household level.

Together they explain why the department places IYCF among its schemes despite it paying nothing to anyone.

An honest note on this scheme's scope

Improving Infant & Young Child Feeding publishes limited material because it is a small, long-running internal training scheme rather than a benefit programme. What is verifiable is on this page: the sanction year of 2005-06, the two objectives, the target group of functionaries, and the NFHS-III and IBFAN figures the department cites. The department does not publish a per-year training budget, a count of functionaries trained, or a district-wise breakdown, and nothing of that kind should be assumed.

Where to get help

• Anganwadi Centre in your village or ward: first point of contact for feeding counselling
• ASHA and ANM at the health sub-centre
• Block CDPO and ICDS Supervisor, for a centre that is not functioning
• District Programme Officer (WCD) for escalation in the district
• Women Helpline, Haryana: 181
• Child Help Line: 1098, for a child in distress
• wcdhry.gov.in, under Children Schemes, for the departmental page

How to check your application status

IYCF has no online portal, no application number and no citizen-facing form, so there is nothing to log into and no tracking ID to enter. What "checking status" actually means here depends on who is asking.

For a mother or family wanting counselling. There is no application to check. If an Anganwadi Worker has not yet visited or the promised counselling has not happened:

1. Ask the Anganwadi Worker directly at the next monthly nutrition and health day, referencing the pregnancy registration or the MCP card already issued.
2. If the centre gives no response, raise it with the ICDS Supervisor who oversees that centre.
3. If that does not resolve it, escalate to the block CDPO, and beyond that to the District Programme Officer of the Women and Child Development Department.
4. For an urgent gap in service, the Women Helpline (181) can also be used to flag that an Anganwadi Centre is not functioning.

For a functionary awaiting a training nomination. Since nominations are made internally by the block CDPO and the District Programme Officer, there is no self-service tracker. A CDPO, Supervisor, AWW, SHG member or ASHA who has been told they are nominated but has not received batch details should follow up directly with the block CDPO office, since batch schedules are circulated departmentally rather than published for public tracking.

Common reasons for rejection

IYCF cannot "reject" an application in the usual sense, because there is no application form to submit and no eligibility criteria to fail. The two situations that resemble a rejection in practice are different, and each has a different real cause:

A family does not receive feeding counselling.

• The household is not registered at an Anganwadi Centre. Counselling is delivered through the centre visit and growth monitoring session, so a pregnancy or child not registered there, and not carrying an MCP card, is simply outside the workflow that delivers it. The fix is registering at the nearest Anganwadi Centre or health sub-centre.
• The local centre is understaffed or the post is vacant. IYCF depends on a trained AWW or ASHA being present; if the post is vacant or the worker has not attended the departmental training batch, the counselling content itself may be missing even where the centre is open. This is an administrative gap, not something the family did wrong, and it is resolved through the escalation chain (Supervisor, then CDPO, then District Programme Officer), not by resubmitting anything.

A functionary is not nominated for a training batch.

• No vacancy in the current batch. Training batches are run periodically with limited seats, and nomination is at the discretion of the block CDPO and District Programme Officer based on department need, not a first-come queue a worker can apply into.
• Role mismatch. IYCF batches are built for CDPOs, Supervisors, AWWs, SMS staff, SHG members and ASHAs specifically, so a functionary outside these categories will not be nominated regardless of interest.
• Missing service records at the nominating office. Since nomination is administrative rather than application-based, a worker whose service or posting details are not current with the block office can be skipped simply because the CDPO's list did not include them; keeping posting records updated with the block office is the practical safeguard.

In neither case is there a rejection letter, a resubmission window or an appeal form, because IYCF was never built as an application-based scheme.